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Home Health & Hospice Week

Compliance:

Hospices Serving Nursing Home Patients Brace For 2012 Scrutiny

Published on Wed Nov 09, 2011

OIG work plan for next year throws spotlight on this care setting. In a report earlier this year, the OIG heaped criticism on hospices serving a high percentage of patients who reside in nursing homes. Now it's turning that criticism into further action. In the hospice section of its fiscal year 2012 work plan, the HHS Office of Inspector General says it will "review hospices' marketing materials and practices and their financial relationships with nursing facilities." The focus of the new review, says the OIG, will be "hospices that have a high percentage of their beneficiaries in nursing facilities." Back in July, the OIG issued a reporting casting grave suspicions on so-called "high percentage hospices," which were providing two-thirds or more of their hospice care to Medicare patients in nursing facilities in 2009 (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XX, No. 30, p. 233). The agency's analysis found that such hospices "typically [...]
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